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When did you become a Jazz Bass guy (gal)?

#62
My Ric, possessing years of driving sound spikes into the tonal spectrum of humanity, was lonely... in need of a smoother, more refined instrument... 'allowed' said owner to adopt not one, but two Jazz basses, making for a complete, well rounded family. All three vie for my attention, especially when I'm on the phone, and please don't ask which is my favorite, for all three have a special place in my repertoire...

... (whispering: the G.E.D.D.Y. L.E.E. signature is awesome. I'm spelling it out, as the other two can't, just yet)...
 
#63
Jamvan said:
I played most anything but a Jazz up until about 2 years ago. And, technically, I only have one Fender Jazz bass in my arsenal of basses but I've assembled many mutt Jazz basses in the last two years and I can't get enough of them. Love the sound. Love the style. Love the necks. Oh, and I'm ready to assemble a 5 string Jazz here very shortly.

I probably should seek help...

View attachment 967532
Click to expand...

If you ever need help moving, I'm in the Yellow Pages under 'Free Zen and a Duck'...
 
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#66
I become a jazz bass guy on some Mondays - if the gig the next weekend calls for a jazz bass vibe, then that week I'm a jazz guy. The next week, who knows? Whatever the gig wants, the gig gets.

Of course, my jazz bass has a p width neck (big hands) and a p shaped body. But it does have jazz pickups.
 
#67
My first bass was a Squier P that someone gave me. The original pickup had been replaced with a one from a Peavey Patriot bass. I liked it just fine but it was eventually stolen. The first bass I bought was a MIM jazz. The sound of two pickups in two different locations spoke to me. It has been that way ever since. I've tried many other configurations and enjoyed some of them quite a bit but the sound of two J pickups is what I like to hear myself play the most. I love hearing other people play P basses and Stingrays but for my playing, to my ears, Jazz style basses sound the best. Plus I love the body shape.
 
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#70
My first good bass was a Jazz. 1975 or 76. A pre-CBS '65 candy apple red, at that. It was red, which was what did it. I knew nothing about basses, I just liked the color. But I have strong recollections of the sound of that bass, and with both pickups on, it was good. Still, I didn't like the pickups soloed. I had yet to hear Jaco...

Shorty thereafter, I discovered Stanley Clarke and thereafter lusted after that sound. But for most of my career I hated actual Fenders (that older P-bass two-by-four neck!!!) but found the P-bass sound very useful, so most of my basses thereafter got a P-bass pickup routed into them. Then for a long time, decades, I just stopped caring about the sound as long as it was decent...

A couple of years ago I was in a new band and when I brought in a Jazz I had acquired through no fault of my own, the band fawned over it. So I tried to like it. I swear, I really tried. I recorded with it. I even built one. Really nice one, too. But my most played and loved basses remain P-bass based basses (!).

But I really like the Quarter-Pounder Jazz pickup I just put in the bridge of a new P (with Jazz neck, no less) I just built! :-)

So I guess I am discovering, through all this rambling, I like both ends of the Jazz, the neck and the bridge p/u), just not the middle bits.
 
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#72
I started off with a Hondo copy of a fender P, quickly switching to an actual fender p after my first years. once I heard geddy, I found a Ricky trying to cop his sounds, I heard John Paul jones play, and at the start associated the rounder tone with the jazz. It wasn't until I got on the slap funk thing, where I heard, you had to have a jazz bass to do that right, and I got my first one, in about 1986. It was a 70's model in banana yellow with a black pickguard I think. It was stolen later that year, but it was enough to get me hooked. Only after I heard geddy recorded my favorite songs with one, did I start to realize how versitile they really were.
 
#74
John Paul Jones, Dazed and Confused on the movie The Song Remains the Same. Had no real idea what it was, still playing alto sax in junior high school band, transitioning into drums (paid a lot more attention to Bonham's clear plastic set, his setup, style and solo with hands).

In high school when I started paying more attention to rock band's gear, and realized that Jazz bass and Stratocaster were pretty much what most of the bands I was listening to at the time played.
 
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#75
Dr. Cheese said:
Playing my Peavey Forums so much has reminded me that for most of my bass playing life, I was not a Jazz Bass player. If anything, I loved Stingrays and soap bar loaded basses the most like Modulus and Ken Smith. I think the first style bass I really bonded with was a Guild Pilot V, and later I bought a Fender Jazz Deluxe V to get more of a Marcus Miller sound.

I also think all of the Jazz talk on TB moved towards Jazzes too. In history, we talk about the "invention of tradition," where people adopt something, and soon act as if they have always done it. I guess that is me and Jazz Basses.
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I became a Jazz Bass lover not out of choice, but only because lefty Squier basses are not plenty. Found a 70s VM Jazz, and thankfully, I fell in love with it as soon as I played it.
 
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#79
In the early 80s I started out with what I could afford - an Aria Pro CSB300 Cardinal. In 1984 I added a Yamaha BB300 for slappier stuff, and then in 1987 I picked up a '78 fretless Jazz. I didn't play it as often as the fretted basses, but I loved the feel and tone. I picked a fretted Jazz up in '92, and it became my main player from that point forth. In 2013, I freshened up with a new one.

I've owned other basses in the meantime (Peavey, Rick, a couple more Yamahas), but have had at least one Jazz on hand since the mid 80s. It's really been the only constant on my gear list.
 

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